Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Science

Persons wishing to enrol in the Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Science should read these requirements in conjunction with the course handbook.

Students should carefully consider the inherent requirements statement below as a guide to their learning during the course, and as a way to identify early possible challenges they may have in meeting these requirements.

Prospective students who remain interested or engaged in the course should discuss their concerns with College staff, such as the Course Coordinator, as soon as possible. If the challenges are related to a disability or health condition, students should contact AccessAbility Services to discuss possible strategies and reasonable adjustments.

If the inherent requirements cannot be met with reasonable adjustments, JCU staff may provide guidance regarding other study options.

Reasonable adjustments

Reasonable adjustments must:

Be consistent with legislative and regulatory requirements, and not compromise codes, guidelines and policies

Not result in unethical or unprofessional behaviour

Meet the necessary standards of timeliness, accuracy and functional effectiveness to ensure that self and patient care, treatment or safety is not compromised

Address the need to perform the full range of tasks involved in clinical practice, including undertaking learning activities in mixed gender environments, which reflect the Australian context, and

Ensure that performance is consistent and sustained over a given period.

Legal

Inherent Requirement

Compliance with Australian Law and professional regulations.

Rationale

Knowledge, understanding, and compliance with legislative and regulatory requirements are necessary in order to reduce the risk of harm to self and others in clinical and related settings; compliance with these professional regulations and the Australian Law ensures students are both responsible and accountable for their practice.

Comply with the requirements for membership with the Australian Institute of Medical Scientists

Ethical and professional behaviour

Inherent Requirement

Ethical and professional behaviour in academic, clinical and professional environments.

Rationale

Compliance with standards, codes, guidelines and policies that facilitates safe, competent interactions and relationships for students and the people they engage with in the many environments of practice is required for the physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of all.

Examples

Comply with academic and non-academic conduct codes and policies and professional standards

Identify and enact relevant applications of these codes and standards, including those relating to plagiarism, informed consent, privacy, confidentiality and equitable, inclusive and respectful behaviour in academic, professional and clinical settings

Safe practice

Inherent Requirement

Compliance with safe practice sufficient to meet professional performance, including considerations of current scope of practice, workplace health and safety and infection control and alarm system responsiveness.

Rationale

Compliance with current scope of practice, workplace health and safety, infection control considerations and effective and timely response to alarm systems are required to provide safe environments for students, staff and others.

Examples

Limit task performance to current scope of practice

Comply with relevant workplace health & safety policies for equipment use and storage

Comply with infection control procedures, including the use of Personal Protective Equipment

Meet Queensland Health, or equivalent, work placement requirements including first aid and CPR knowledge and competencies

Be able to respond to alarm systems to maintain personal safety

Cognition

Knowledge and cognitive skills

Inherent Requirement

Knowledge acquisition, utilisation and retention spanning and drawing together all coursework subjects. Cognitive skills for focus, memory, attention to detail, theoretical deliberation, and practical functioning sufficient to meet professional performance.

Rationale

Understanding and retention of coursework information and the effective processing of this information is required for appropriate, safe and effective professional performance.

Examples

Make safe and appropriate scientific process decisions from retained knowledge

Assess the application of policy and procedures in the context of professional performance

Research and use an evidence based framework to decide on appropriate methodology for scientific inquiries

Understanding the need for method validation, reference ranges and limitations of different methodologies on result interpretation

Identify and analyse potential causes for abnormalities in blood analysis results and observations of growth patterns in bacterial cultures

Notice and respond effectively to critical small changes in instructions, measurements or equipment functioning

Metacognition

Inherent Requirement

Awareness of own thinking, and skills to reflect, evaluate, adapt and implement new cognitive strategies for improved learning and professional performance.

Rationale

Understanding and ongoing learning about oneself as an instrument in professional performance is required for safe and effective delivery of professional performance.

Examples

Identify and analyse unanticipated outcomes of applied professional knowledge, and modify practice for future practice

Understanding your limitations in knowledge, experience and skill e.g. when an acute leukaemia is diagnosed allowing the Oncologist/Haematologist contact the requesting clinician

Respectfully dealing with clinicians when they do not understand your interpretation of a result

Dealing with mistakes and failings which may happen in the laboratory in an ethical and honest way, admitting to colleagues, supervisors and clients that a mistake has been made and putting in place corrective action

Confronting social situations, e.g. dealing with a positive pregnancy test or sexually transmitted disease of a 12 year old

Be aware of, and take responsibility for your personal role in inter-personal and team interactions including personal responses to cultural and professional paradigms

Manage and proactively learn from academic and professional practice set-backs by self-evaluation

Manage multiple priorities and time management decisions.

Literacy

Inherent Requirement

English literacy skills to allow the creation and interpretation of clear meaning for professional performance through a range of symbols and English language text.

Rationale

Information can be delivered by many different modes and competent literacy skills for these are essential to provide appropriate, safe and effective delivery of professional performance.

Examples

Comprehend, summarise and reference a range of literature in accordance with appropriate academic conventions in written assignments

Accurately interpret scientific, pathology and research data including data resulting from pathological investigations, machine generated data and result interpretation of colleagues

Accurately produce and interpret scientific graphs, diagrams and statistical analyses including predicting the likelihood of an outcome and comparing the effectiveness of two or more treatment outcomes

Communication

Verbal communication

Inherent Requirement

Ability to interact with verbal communication in English to a standard that allows clear and comprehensible two-way interactions for professional performance.

Rationale

Effective interaction with spoken English from university, professional and clinical staff as well as peers is required for effective learning and to provide safe and effective professional performance.

Examples

Understand and respond accurately and appropriately in a time-constrained environment when provided with additional verbal information impacting on a work process e.g. changes to a blood analysis protocol; changes in status for analysis for example when a situation becomes urgent following a request from the Emergency department

Engage with peers, supervisors and teaching staff to explore relevant issues around a developing team task/ a tutorial simulation exercise, e.g. discuss current testing protocols and plan a new method and protocol validation project

Present information and results formally to a wider audience, including clinical, nursing and other hospital staff

Non-verbal communication

Inherent Requirement

Non-verbal communication skills that enable respectful communication with others to meet professional performance.

Rationale

The ability to recognise, interpret and respond to non-verbal cues, to communicate with congruent and respectful non-verbal behaviour, and to be sensitive to individual and/or cultural variations in non-verbal communication are required for safe and effective professional interactions.

Examples

Use non-verbal behaviour that is respectful of others and consistent with the nature of the discussion during work team discussions, presentations

Recognise cues in facial expression, appearance, behaviour, posture, movement in people and in animals (e.g. when conducting tissue or blood sampling from animals and/or human subjects)

Written communication

Inherent Requirement

Ability to produce English text to a standard that provides clear and professional-level communication, with a language usage and style that is tailored to the targeted recipients.

Rationale

Effective communication in English text is required to demonstrate applied skills in academic writing conventions and in sustained and organised academic argument and provide safe and effective professional performance.

Examples

Communicate complex academic and scientific perspectives in writing

Summarise and appropriately reference a range of literature in written assignments

Read, understand and use precise and appropriate language to contribute clearly to handwritten and electronically-produced records in a time-constrained environment

Sensory Ability

Visual

Inherent Requirement

Ability to interact with visual inputs sufficiently to manage learning environments and to meet professional performance needs.

Rationale

Elements in the teaching, learning and working environment are delivered by visual means, and the ability to learn from or respond to these inputs is required to provide safe and effective professional performance.

Examples

Respond and analyse to colour differences in cells under a microscope; respond to visual cue on malfunctioning equipment

Set-up and use equipment and tools including centrifuges, sterilisers, microscopes, petri dishes and culture plates

Auditory

Inherent Requirement

Ability to interact with auditory inputs sufficiently to manage learning environments and to meet professional performance.

Rationale

Elements in the learning and working environments are delivered by auditory means, and the ability to learn from or respond to these inputs is required to provide safe and effective professional performance.

Examples

Interact with verbal communications that provide additional information impacting on a work process (e.g. discussing setting up and using a new piece of equipment)

Follow developing discussions with colleagues which will modify practice (e.g. changes to a testing procedure and sampling handling technique)

Detect, discriminate and respond to equipment alarms at different frequencies, emergency calls over PA systems, and urgent verbal information for professional practice

Tactile

Inherent Requirement

Ability to respond to tactile input sufficiently to meet professional performance needs.

Rationale

Elements in the working environment are detected and measured by tactile means, and the ability to learn from or respond to these inputs is required for safe and effective professional performance.

Examples

Apply appropriate pressure when pipetting small quantities of reagent into a solution by hand

Motor ability

Gross motor ability

Strength, range of motion, coordination and mobility sufficient to meet professional performance needs.

Rationale

A range of physical actions in a time-constrained environment is required to provide safe and effective professional performance.

Examples

Move and maintain balance and body position around practice areas to access, transport and use ingredients, glassware and equipment on varying surfaces and levels, to complete tasks within constrained timeframes

Reach and work across sterile areas without contaminating surfaces or materials

Position and tighten a tourniquet on a limb for collecting blood

Safely retrieve, move and utilise stock and equipment from reasonable storage positions at a range of heights

Sustained performance

Sustained physical, cognitive and psychosocial performance sufficient for safe and complete professional performance in a time-constrained environment.

Rationale

A range of complex, multi-component or extended practice tasks carried out over a period of time and in a time-constrained environments is required for safe and effective professional performance.

Examples

Sustain study practices and clinical performance to sufficiently engage with the learning workload for a study period, and for the degree, within a timeframe

Sustain a working posture, associated manual tasks, cognitive engagement, performance level and emotional control for the full duration of a practice process e.g. accurately pipetting for extended time periods, perform laboratory tasks in a constrained timeframe with a significant ongoing workload

Cross matching urgently for transfusion on multiple trauma patients

Behavioural adaptability

Inherent Requirement

Behaviour that adapts to changing situations sufficiently for safe and complete practice, and instigates self-care consistent with professional expectations.

Rationale

Behavioural adaptability is required to manage personal emotional responses as an individual and within teams in changing and unpredictable environments. Students will also be required to adapt their behaviour appropriately during times of additional stressors in their own lives, whether this adaptation involves ways of continuing to engage with their role or withdrawing for self-care for a period.

Examples

Adjust ways of working within teams of varied personal and professional backgrounds and clinical opinions to facilitate effective practice decisions

Cope with own emotions and behaviour effectively when dealing with multiple and/or changing demands in the practice setting including working with pathology agents, human and animal products i.e. urine, faeces, blood, sputum

Maintain respectful communication practices in times of increased stressors or workloads

Be receptive and respond professionally to constructive feedback

Adjust to changing circumstances in a way that allows self-care while maintaining a professional-level focus on practice needs

We acknowledge Australian Aboriginal People and Torres Strait Islander People as the first inhabitants of
the nation, and acknowledge Traditional Owners of the lands where our staff and students live, learn
and work.